Following down this gorge, never doubting they should come at last to their haven, they found its mouth to be impassable. Rocks, brush, and timber choked the way. Crossing to the south side, they went sheerly up the steep hill—so steep that it was all but impossible for the straining animals to drag up the heavy wagons, and so narrow that a false step might have dashed wagon and team half a thousand feet on to the rocks below. But at last they stood on the summit,—and broke into shouts of rapture as they looked. For the wilderness home of Israel had been found. Far and wide below them stretched their promised land,—a broad, open valley hemmed in by high mountains that lay cold and far and still in the blue haze. Some of these had slept since the world began under their canopies of snow, and these flashed a sunlit glory into the eager eyes of the pilgrims. Others reared bare, scathed peaks above slopes that were shaggy with timber. And out in front lay the wondrous lake,—a shield of deepest glittering turquois held to the dull, gray breast of the valley. Again and again they cried out, “Hosanna to God and the Lamb!” and many of the bearded host shed tears, for the hardships of the way had weakened them. Then Brigham came, lying pale and wasted in his wagon, and when they saw him gaze long, and heard him finally say, “Enough—drive on!” they knew that on this morning of July 24, 1847, they had found the spot where in vision he had seen the tent of the Lord come down to earth. Joel Rae had waited with a beating heart for Brigham’s word of confirmation, and when he heard it his soul was filled to overflowing. He knew that here the open vision would enfold him; here the angel of the Lord would come to him fetching his great Witness. Here he would rise to immeasurable zeniths of spirituality. And here his people would become a mighty people of the Lord. He foresaw the hundred unwalled cities that Brigham was to found, and the green gardens that were to make the now desert valley a fit setting for the temple of God. Here was a stricken Rachel, a barren Sarah to be transformed by the touch of the Saints to a mother of many children. Here would the lambs of the Lord be safe at last from the Gentile wolves—safe for a time at least, until so long as it might take the Lions of the Lord to come to their growth. And that was to be no indefinite period; for had not Brigham just said, with a snap of his great jaws and a cold flash of his blue eyes, “Let us alone ten years here, and we’ll ask no odds of Uncle Sam or the Devil!” There on the summit they knelt to entreat the mercy of God upon the land. The next day, by their leader’s direction, they consecrated the valley to the Lord, and planted six acres of potatoes. Chapter XI. Another Miracle and a Temptation in the Wilderness